[204-215] "The recognition that existing German idealism is utterly false inevitably led to materialism, but it should be noted, not simply to the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century," says Friedrich Engels.

This newest materialism, which is derived here from the complete bankruptcy of German idealism and of which Friedrich Engels is one of the founders, is ordinarily poorly understood, although it constitutes the principal theoretical foundation of German social democracy. Let us therefore subject it to a more detailed examination.

This specifically German, or if you will, social-democratic materialism is best characterized by contrasting it with "the metaphysical, exclusively mechanical materialism of the eighteenth century"; and if we further compare it with German idealism, from the bankruptcy of which it arose, then the character of its social-democratic foundation will be completely revealed—a foundation which, subsequently—

Absolute
Truth
NB
NB
Anti-
Dühring,
p. 10
NB
429